700 MILLION PETRODOLLARS ADRIFT

One of the largest and most unknown chapters of bleeding of public funds under Chavismo in Venezuela, is that of irregularities that were perpetrated in the management of the fleet of oil tankers and other vessels of Petroleos de Venezuela, Pdvsa.

While the government of Nicolás Maduro juggles to circumvent the United States sanctions and paradoxically celebrates as a victory the arrival of foreign ships with fuel to alleviate the shortage, it hides that hundreds of millions of dollars from Venezuelans were involved in business with oil tankers. Many are not even in service. They never set sail.

This investigation carried out by the Alianza Rebelde Investiga -ARI- from Venezuela, and the Latin American journalism platform CONNECTAS, tracked down more than 3.7 billion dollars committed to the oil company's business, thanks to a leak of 350 internal PDVSA documents. Among the disclosures are advances for oil tankers or shipyards that were never built, disbursements without due endorsement or monitoring of contracting protocols, purchases of vessels with evidence of overpricing, and unfavorable freight agreements for the Corporation.

Among the faces of this story stand out those of Asdrúbal Chávez, current president of the state oil company and who before coming to office held key positions of responsibility with respect to the fleet; that of Rafael Ramírez, who led the corporation and the Ministry of Petroleum when millionaire businesses were forged; and that of Wilmer Ruperti, one of the businessmen who most benefited from contracts for the fleet and who today reappears as a savior in the crisis. A sea of irregularities at PDVSA, the once powerful corporation that left behind its past as one of the richest oil companies in the world.

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